Changes

Managing projects is one thing, but managing people is another. Whether we’re hired as managers or grow “organically” into management roles, sometimes technical people end up leading technical teams (gasp!). I’ll talk about lessons I’ve learned about hiring, retaining, and working long-term and day-to-day with highly tech-competent humans. I’ll also talk about navigating the politics of libraryland, juggling different types of projects, and working with constrained budgets to make good things and keep talented people engaged.

* Bohyun Kim, bkim@hshsl.umaryland.edu, University of Maryland, Baltimore

Have you ever pointed out obvious (to you at least!) usability problems in your library website only to face strong resistance from the library staff? Are you one of those who are passionate about making library information and services as usable as possible but who also struggle to get the point across and/or obtain the crucial buy-in from colleagues and administrators? There is no shortage of usability and UX guidelines, but they are useless if you cannot implement it for your own library. This talk will focus on the 'expert review' (aka 'heuristic evaluation') process rather than other more time-and-labor-intensive usability testing methods. Several examples from amazingly simple usability fixes to more nuanced UX issues in libraries will be discussed to your heart's content along with practical strategies that will help you to make a real difference to your library's Web usability and UX.